Chapter 320: Tony's Two-Pronged Plan
"Your questions have been answered, Batman."
Tony Stark had known the face under the mask since earlier that day, and calling the figure in front of him "Batman" still felt strange in ways he couldn't fully articulate.
"Now you answer mine. Why the bat?"
"Because bats inspire fear," Batman said.
Tony considered this.
"If you wrapped yourself in explosives and shouted religious slogans at criminals, it might honestly be more effective."
Batman didn't respond.
Tony studied the exposed jaw — that infuriating, expressionless jaw — and found, as he had found repeatedly since learning the truth, that he could not reconcile this immovable force of nature with Peter Parker. The kid who had shown up at the Oscorp gala. The kid he had warned, with absolute sincerity, that every scratch and drop of blood would be settled.
He had said that. Out loud.
"Are you actually Peter?"
"Yes."
"The vibranium isotope work. That was you?"
"Yes."
"The whole time — every time I dealt with Batman, that was you under there?"
"Yes."
"Even at the weapons facility with Obadiah. On the landing pad."
Batman looked at him steadily.
"What are you actually asking?"
"Nothing. I'm not asking anything." Tony touched the side of his own head. "I'm saying there might be something wrong up here. You have to be at least a little unhinged. Otherwise you wouldn't keep performing two completely different identities in front of the same person."
He thought again about his own warnings. The grave sincerity with which he had delivered them. His whole body tried to recoil from the memory.
"It's protection," Batman said.
"Protection from criminals who'd come after your real identity?"
"No. Protection for everyone else."
Tony stood, crossed to Batman, and knocked the back of his hand against the chest plate of the Arkham suit.
"This doesn't offer you much protection, does it?"
Batman said nothing.
"You've come clean with me. This suit can't fly, and it's not going to stop much. So hear me out." Tony's voice shifted into the register he used when he was genuinely trying to solve a problem. "Let me build you something new. Call it Rescue Two. At minimum, it would cover that damn chin."
"No."
Batman had come to Stark Tower for one reason: to assess Tony's condition and determine whether he needed immediate support. Tony was physically depleted but mentally intact. That was sufficient.
He turned toward the landing pad.
"You're going to do the same thing you've done every other time," Tony called after him. "Walk out without another word."
Batman stopped. He turned his head slightly.
Tony walked to the bar, poured himself a drink, and kept talking.
"This dinosaur invasion was a catastrophe. I trusted Reed with equipment I shouldn't have left unsupervised, and I've already accepted that. But it clarified some things I'd been slow to see."
He took a long drink.
"It told me you exist. It told me the Hulk has apparently been living in this city the entire time. And based on Electro's reports from the field, it told me about your friend who looks like a lizard and fights like something that should be extinct."
Tony picked up a stylus and drew a line through the air. A holographic projection materialized between them — not the Hulk, but footage of the Lizard Professor locked in combat with the giant horned T-Rex, tearing through it in a way that had very little to do with human anatomy.
"The body structure is wrong for a dinosaur. I ran the analysis. He's something closer to a human-lizard hybrid." Tony walked through the projection to stand beside Batman. "And this is the only instance from the entire invasion of one enhanced creature actively fighting another enhanced threat."
He let that sit.
"He's with you, isn't he?"
Batman neither confirmed nor denied it. He let the silence answer for him.
Tony read it correctly and moved on.
"The man on the flying horse. Him too?"
No response.
"Right." Tony finished his drink. "Here's the situation as I see it. This city now has you — a bat with an exposed chin — and me in a metal suit. It also has the Hulk, the lizard, Electro, and at least three others whose current status I can only partially account for: Otto the nuclear physicist, Morbius, and Harry Osborn. Probably more I don't know about."
He set the glass down.
"Last time it was dinosaurs. Next time it could be the Hulk losing control. Or your lizard deciding the sewer system is his personal territory. Or one of the others. And if any of them causes casualties — what's your plan?"
Batman said nothing.
Tony exhaled.
"I'm not attacking you, Peter. I'm saying you don't have to carry all of this yourself. One person managing a collection of enhanced individuals and absorbing every consequence alone — that's not sustainable."
"What are you proposing?" Batman asked. He actually wanted to hear it.
"Two things running in parallel," Tony said. "First, an organization — something like a union, with actual structure — to bring these individuals under a coordinated framework rather than leaving them scattered. Second, a containment facility purpose-built for threats that standard prisons can't handle."
He looked at Batman.
"Think about it."